Opperman

When my buddies and I were younger we had the "reverse tip system". Now don't think bad of me. We would give the heavier, less attractive girls $2 and the pretty ones $1. The reason for this is that we knew the pretty girls got plenty of tips but we worried about the fat ones or the older ones getting the shaft. Especially the older ones because they were trying to make a living. I still find myself doing that today subconsciously at times.

Not a bad idea.

The biggest percentage tips I've given in a regular restaurant have either been due to occupying the table a ridiculous amount of time (met a friend for lunch in St. Louis and he ended up being 40 minutes late because of traffic...) or if I can tell the waitress is trying but is havin an exceptionally crappy day (PB and I gave like an 80 percent tip at Steak & Shake once this summer because our waitress was really nice to us and you could tell she was trying, but she had two different supervisors yelling at her to the point that she was almost crying).

Yikes...I hope the second one doesn't ruin my reputation around here.

As for the question...my tipping there depends on how I pay.

If I pay with credit card, gift card, or ATM card, it does not provide an option of tipping -- and I usually don't carry much, if any, cash.

If I pay with cash, I always tell them to keep the coins.

Personally, I think the whole tip system that has evolved now is an absolutely terrible idea. A tip should be a reward for good service, not a food/drink delivery fee. Restaurants should not be able to pay anyone $3 an hour.

That said, I understand that it *IS* the system, and I go by it. I just think it's an absolutely awful idea that lets restaurants get away with paying less than minimum wage.

Y'all need to start a summer basketball league like Pearl did here. Gave us something to discuss duinr the summer. Granted, probably set defensize development back 2 months, but it's been fun to keep up with.

We had a *great* summer league when Cal got here. We had NBA players, D-I, D-II, and junior college players, and some big names that used to play college ball. But he kept out all his players after one year of it because it was doing nothing to help -- it was just playground ball inside a junior college gym -- in 20 minute halves, you'd usually see scores like 174-158, 149-113, 137-128, etc.

That killed the league quickly. Instead, they're playing pickup games all summer long at the Finch Center. It seems to be a lot more effective, they're building chemistry all summer, and they occasionally have recruits join them for the games.

We talk basketball all year, summer league or no. As PB said, though, in the summer...anything and everything comes up. Some of it's good, like this, but some of it is just stupid.

I've got it on PS3...I think my single favorite thing might be that the run game looks like a real run game.

You can't bounce everything outside, you can't run the direct snap to the RB 20 times a game (guilty as charged on both counts on all previous NCAA's!). At the same time, you can chew yardage in small chunks up the middle unless you're overmatched.

They messed me up by changing the controls this year on PS3. Last year's stiff-arm button is now the lateral button. As I found out accidentally.

where did you get your degree from and do you have any advice that i could pass along to my oldest son?

Ouachita Baptist in Arkansas...as for advice, if he's going into sports information or sports media of any kind, tell him to make sure he actually likes the work before he gets too deep into it. A lot of people think it's an easy, fun job...it's not easy, and at times it's not fun. The hours are long, you can go 7 weeks or more without a single day off...but if you like what you're doing, it's bearable.

Explain to them that you feel that the person is guilty. Let them know that you feel the police were totally correct in arrersting this person and charging them with the crime. Say something like: The police just don't ride around and arrest people for no reason!!!!!!!!!!

 

You will be excused and your name probably removed from any potential juror list

 

Or do what I told my wife to do. Tell them you firmly believe in the death penalty for any and all crimes

"I may not be Muslim, but I believe in the punishment system set forth in Sharia Law. Off with his hand/leg/head/other."

a girl came into work straight from visitation on saturday. it was open casket. she was hysterical and said she couldnt get the image of how he looked in the casket out of her head. look at the picture of the truck ......... WHY would they make it open casket? ...

I bet anybody who saw it became a safer driver the instant he/she saw him. That could have been part of why they did it.

OK, the other day I was watching Regis & Kelly (I can do that now that school is out, you know!! ) anyway, Kelly said that when she had to fly that she always sends her bags ahead by Fed-Ex, and they are there at the hotel room waiting for her. Sounds like a plan to me!!!

If necessary, I was going to smart off (imagine that!) that I should just send it FedEx next time.

Unfortunately, working in sports information does not pay me quite as much as what Kelly Ripa makes, so I can't actually...afford...to do that.

Greetings everyone…I’ll try to be around a little more often, but who knows what I’ll have time for.

I just had an experience you guys will probably enjoy reading about. This is long, but I think it’ll be a little entertaining, since it didn’t happen to you.

I had a convention in downtown San Diego last week (we all have to make sacrifices sometimes…). My dad wanted to go along so he could capitalize on having a free hotel room in downtown San Diego.

We try to consolidate most of our frequent flyer miles with American, so we booked the first Memphis to Dallas flight last Friday morning, then from Dallas to San Diego.

The fun starts when we go to the counter to check in for our flight at Memphis International. We hand over the online boarding passes at the check-in counter, and we are told that the last Thursday night flight from Dallas was an hour late, and they couldn’t leave until an hour late on Friday because of the minimum-rest laws. Since all the other Dallas to San Diego flights were sold out, they said they weren’t going to fly us to Dallas.

After silently pecking away at the keyboard for about 15 minutes, she tells us she can get us two seats on a Northwest flight from Memphis to Denver, then we will fly United from Denver to San Diego. This sounds fine, but it’s now 7:40 and the flight leaves at 8:20.

What I didn’t realize until then was that when you’re shuffled to a different airline, you have to check in at their counter. If any of you have ever tried to fly Northwest from Memphis, you know that their lines are LONG. So we try curbside check-in, but the computer says we have to see an agent at the counter. So we go back inside and we see somebody attempting to direct the traffic. This lady asks “Are you flying Northwest?” “Yes.” “Go to your right and get in any of the lines where it says Northwest.” I know what I wanted to say back to that, but my mom always said if you don’t have anything nice to say… (And the exact phrase going through my head wouldn’t be allowed on here anyway)

So we’re there for two minutes, then another Northwest person mentions that the check-in lines on the *left* side are short…so we go over to that side, and we find out that they’ve got one person for about every three lines. We eventually get checked in, get our boarding passes, and check our luggage at about 8:05, and we’re told we’ll be at gate B31. Now we have to get through security.

The line for the B concourse is about 300 people long – the C concourse line is shorter, though, with about 20 people, and there’s a people-mover behind the checkpoint to move over to B. We eventually get through the line at 8:08, and we find our next problem. Since we changed airlines Friday morning, our boarding passes had “SSSSSS” on them. That caused us to be flagged for an automatic pat-down and hand inspection of our carry-ons. My dad finally gets through with his patdown and inspection about 8 minutes before our flight was to leave, and he takes off ahead of me to try to make sure we don’t get left behind.

He gets there as they’re about to close the door, and he stalls them just long enough for me to get there (and I was moving pretty quickly). I think I finally stopped sweating about when we got over Kansas.

The Denver part of the trip was much less eventful – we found a restaurant to eat lunch, we boarded the flight, we flew to San Diego (passing over the Grand Canyon and part of Lake Mead during the flight), and all is well.

So we go to baggage claim. My dad’s suitcase shows up early on, but mine never did, and United told us that Northwest never gave them my bag. So we file the lost baggage claim and go pick up our rental car (we drove up the Pacific Coast Highway to LA to watch the Dodgers-Padres game that night).

We call Northwest, and they tell us that even though United never received the suitcase from them, they can’t talk to us about it. With the automated call systems and long hold times, we can’t get to a person before our cell phones lose the connection (fewest dropped calls my foot!).

So my mom, from a land line at home, eventually tracks somebody down, and they say they’ve found it, they’ll get it on the next combination of flights to San Diego, call back in 2 hours and we’ll tell you what flight it will arrive on.

We couldn’t get to a human two hours later, so we decided to just call the next morning – at which time, they were back to “we don’t have any idea where it is.” So with my conference about to start, I have to find a Target so I can buy pants and various other essentials (no-shorts rule at this conference). (Kindly, I will only be reimbursed for half of the costs. I guess I should have only bought half a pair of pants then.)

My dad went back to the airport to turn in the rental car and to see if he could find anything out, while I attended the conference. Probably the highlight of my dad’s trip to the airport was being told “There’s people who get paid a lot of money to figure this stuff out.” His response: “Well apparently they stink at it.”

So at this point, we just figure it’s not going to show up soon, and we try to enjoy San Diego as much as possible.

Back home, my mom calls the Memphis Airport Authority, who sends her to the airport police, where she gets a direct line to Northwest’s baggage counter. She is told that they looked for it and couldn’t find it. So they don’t know where it is, but it’s not in Memphis. It’s probably in Denver. They said United will probably fly it to San Diego on the next flight that’s not sold out (apparently, if a flight is sold out, they won’t carry a lost/delayed bag on it even if they have room!?). Regardless, they cannot take it to San Diego themselves, because United was our delivering carrier.

So the convention ends, I go to Padres games the last two nights I’m there (PETCO Park is incredible), and we go to the airport Wednesday for our fight home. With the incidents in London last week, we figured it would take longer to get through security and get in, even though it was a light travel day. We overestimated immensely – we were checked in, behind security, and at our gate by 9:00 for an 11:35 flight. After we ate breakfast, my dad decided to go to back down to the baggage claim area one more time to see, if nothing else, if there’s somebody he can complain to, and to check on the procedures for a lost-baggage claim.

I get a phone call about 5 minutes later from my dad – my suitcase was sitting behind the northwest counter in their locked-up lost-bag area, but there wasn’t anybody down there. He had to go upstairs to the Northwest ticket counter to get somebody to come down and unlock it. They never gave us the claim sticker for my suitcase, but he convinced her it was ours (bag tag matched, knew the number on it, etc.). He went back to the same curbside check-in guy we had used 30 minutes ago, and he remembered us, so he let us check it in. The trip home was uneventful, and I thought it was ironic and fitting that of the three bags we brought back (in addition to the two suitcases, I had to buy a duffel bag to get everything back home), the lost suitcase was the first one out on the carousel.

Since United still hasn’t received my suitcase from Northwest, they have my bag on priority trace at their headquarters. I’ve already had two people tell me I should make them pay. lol (Don’t worry, I’m not going to actually do that – I jus twant my Target and replacement suitcase money back)

San Diego is amazing – definitely the nicest, coolest place I’ve ever visited. The convention will probably be back there in 2013. Hopefully next year’s trip to Tampa isn’t nearly as, well, interesting.

Thats it

 

Just kidding. Besides America the Beautiful. I like the Battle Hymn of the Republic.

The former Christian metal band Stryper does the best version of Battle Hymn of the Republic that I've ever heard. If you're poking around on Napster or Rhapsody or something sometime, listen to it.

chunky. tastes like chicken. LOL

Felon...the other other other white meat.

Correct me if I'm wrong on this.

 

The recruit is a verbal only. A player cannot sign until his senior year of eligibility. Committing early cuts down on recruiting activity but doesn't bind the athlete to the college. As the athlete gets older, he may change his mind before signing the letter of intent. The question is: Can the college coach have active contact with the athletic at any age as well as guiding the athlete to a prep school?

Correct.

But realize, this has happened before. It's not common, but it's happened.

QUOTE(ERA @ Jun 3 2007 - 10:12 AM) 826470749[/snapback]OK guys, just tell me what you think the ideal setup is even if it means buying the TV first and then buying the other gear at a later and more affordable date.

 

I'm a big fan of the Sony Bravia. That, by all readable accounts and first hand visits to the electronic stores, appears to be the hands down winner in the LCD and rear projection category. Their screens are actually built by Samsung but the engine is Bravia. It's an incredible marriage of the finest electronics I've ever seen. If you guys have any other opinions, let me know. I'll be putting together my system at least by football season unless I'm in the middle of moving. I would really appreciate ALL opinions. Even the projector style Big G...it makes more sense in a lot of ways but I worry about having my room dark enough or finding a projector bright enough to fulfill the requirements.

My Samsung LCD has been great...I liked it better than the Bravias I looked at. Granted, it's more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

And don't believe the hype about HDMI cables being that expensive...for a 3 or 6-foot HDMI cable, the $15 Sams Club one works roughly as well as the $80 ones...it's only longer cables that need to be more expensive.

Well it's not mine per se...but yeah we have about 2 acres of grass.

Do the cops know about this?

QUOTE(Cowboys Up @ May 27 2007 - 11:06 PM) 826468269[/snapback]That is going the extra mile, there coach!

*groan* /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" /> /unsure.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":unsure:" border="0" alt="unsure.gif" /> /rolleyes.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":rolleyes:" border="0" alt="rolleyes.gif" />

QUOTE(Pantherbert @ May 26 2007 - 10:37 AM) 826467477[/snapback]It was great to have met you. You probably don't remember me but my dad and I were probably two of the last people leaving Reese Smith Field when you were. /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

 

Hope you hade a safe trip to Alabama.

Don't kid yourself...I'm sure Limbaugh remembers you as the one raising all the ruckus during, well, all the Bartlett wins. /laugh.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":lol:" border="0" alt="laugh.gif" />

Hey, I LIKED the 18-7 final...

QUOTE(allaboutsports @ May 25 2007 - 08:45 AM) 826466784[/snapback]Some will love this - I recieved an email in pps format that I can't attach to a post but it states that if we quit buying gas from the two big compnaies Shell/Exxon that they will eventually come off of the price.

No, that wouldn't work. All the gas in your area usually comes from the same refinery, even if it comes from stations with a different logo...the same companies would still make the same amount of money, you'd just hurt the individual convenience store owners that are affiliated with Shell and Exxon.

From a proud alum,

Congratulations, Panthers!

I wish I could have made it this year to see it in person, but work just wouldn't really allow it.

It's pretty special to run the table for the postseason. Great work, let's do it again sometime. Next year maybe? /biggrin.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":D" border="0" alt="biggrin.gif" />

Not that this changes anything, but I do not believe he was still in school when this happened.

 

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,199325,00.html

 

That article is dated June 13th

You're right...memory was off about a month. He wasn't in violation of that after all.

One more thing, can't believe I didn't think of this earlier...

All colleges and universities distribute some form of a student-athlete handbook with the rules and regulations the S-A needs to know both from the NCAA and from the school. Participation on one of the teams -- becoming a representative of the university -- requires that you follow the handbook.

And in every single one of them, whether it's a university-wide rule or just an athletics department rule, drinking alcohol (at all) is forbidden.

This happened before he finished school, so he was still on a scholarship that required him to follow the handbook.

Granted, this is not enforced all that harshly, but the responsible thing to do is to honor your contracts.

its the irresponsible people that do stupid things, get caught, and get in trouble.

You would have been better off if you would have stopped at the first comma.

You play with fire, you're gonna get burned.

If you dont get caught, your doing it responsibly ..

That's a very, very, very dangerous and very, very, very, very, very stupid mentality to have about life.

He didnt choose it, his jump shot just brought all that stuff his way.

He chose it by signing to go to a high-profile university. Or, heck, any university -- a DUI makes news if it's a college athlete, regardless of the sport or level.

Nobody forced him to accept a college basketball scholarship. Nobody forced him to go to the NBA. He's not turning away the money from the choices he's made. But one of the consequences is the microscope.

he will always be more succressful than you, so yes ... his personal affairs dont matter, its what he puts on the court. and the intoxication limit just means that it isnt safe for you to drive, because your reactions are impaired ... it doesnt mean you are DRUNK .. i would say at .03 over, he had a buzz. and what i meant about cops and famous people ... is that soon as that cop saw that it was a man whose face is on television, he knew it was a good deal. how did that story get out? ... how did the whole nation know he got pulled over? ... they were paid to release it.

Redick is a more "succressful" basketball player than I will ever be, that's fine. However, there's more to life than how well you can ball. There's more to being "succressful" than how many commas are in your salary.

It is illegal to drive with a buzz, then.

How did the story get out? It's public record. If you got pulled over for DUI, it'd run in the police blotter of your local paper. If I did, I would be on the police blotter of mine. Nobody got paid to release a public record, the police are LEGALLY REQUIRED to release public records.

How did it get out? Every news outlet worth its salt has people monitoring police scanners 24/7/365. So they knew there was a DUI and roughly how it happened -- they probably got the name over the scanner too.